Asking too much of the "leader"

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Asking too much of the “leader”

A cousin, who sadly is no longer with us, firmly believed that every family has a leader. Maybe that was on my sisters’ mind one Monday morning recently when they walked into my house at 11:45, asking what we were going to do about lunch.

I knew they were coming; the plan was to take my
older sister to the eye doctor, but I expected them at 1 p.m., after they had eaten
their lunch. Our two granddaughters, five and seven were on an extended visit. I
had plans for their lunch, my husband’s and mine—but had not anticipated two
extra guests.

They had told me the appointment in Greenville was at two p.m. Now they tell me, “No, it’s one p.m.” Glancing at the clock, I quickly assessed the situation. We needed to leave in 45 minutes. No time even to get fast food. I started pulling out everything in my refrigerator.

An important aspect in this story is that five of the six of us are hypoglycemic and skipping lunch was out of the question. Even delaying eating can be catastrophic—at worst we would fall on our faces, at best we become not-very-nice-to-be-around females. 

     Thankfully, we’d had lunch the day before at our daughter’s house, and she sent leftovers home with me. Among the leftovers were baked potatoes and stuffings we’d had on Friday. My next-oldest sister asked me to make her one. I refused; I don’t think I smiled while refusing. I had to get these two children fed, and myself.

We managed, but not without incident. I warmed leftover French fries in the toaster oven for the youngest one. I didn’t warm all of them, so their grandfather put the rest in the oven. A combination of not paying attention and not setting the oven properly caused a fire in the oven. Believe it or not, I didn’t get excited, because this was the second fire in the same oven, along with a third in a frying pan, just a few days earlier.

During these chaotic 45 minutes, our older granddaughter wanted to send a picture of the dress she will wear in her cousin’s wedding to her. I would have said, “Not now, sweetie,” with a smile, but my sister [the one who wanted the potato] encouraged her to take a picture. They turned to me [the leader] to send the picture on said sister’s I-phone. I don’t even know how to make a call on that phone!! I did some big-time ignoring during those tense moments.

We managed to arrive, our stomachs full, at the doctor’s office on time. Another small tidbit of information is that none of us knew where the doctor’s office was located—only the name of the street—but it was not difficult to find. Thanks for small favors.

The only thing we did right that morning was that all of us at our house got dressed earlier in the day in our going-out-in-public clothes, so all we had to do was to put on our shoes—after  the girls found theirs. Later in the week, during another leftover meal, we asked the youngest if she wanted us to warm French fries [not the same ones] for her.

In her sweet little voice, she declined, saying, “No, I don’t want to set the
oven on fire.”